Adopting of two Common regulations intended to link the common system of Designs to the International System

16.02.2008

These measures permit to obtain, over the course of a single filing, the protection of a design in all European Union countries as well as in other countries of the Geneva Act (currently 23 countries)



The 18th December, 2006, the European Council agreed the principle of the accession of the European Community to the Geneva Act of the 2nd July, 1999 concerning the international registration of designs. Following this decision, the European Community passed the 24th July, 2007, two appliance regulations giving effect to this accession. On one hand, the regulations regard the procedure before the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHMI ) (CE regulation n°876/2007), on the other hand, the applicable taxes.These measures permit to obtain, over the course of a single filing, the protection of a design in all European Union countries as well as in other countries of the Geneva Act (currently 23 countries). This system, which can be compared as the one of trademarks since the accession of the European Community to the Madrid system in 2004, has been applied since the beginning of 2008.